French Holiday has elements of the tropes haters-to-lovers, slow burn, miscommunication and one bed. I thought the FMC Merry was someone I could relate to - wanting a bit of magic just for herself. I found the romance a bit predictable, but it was still fun to read. The slow burn was really nice to read but I felt the part where Merry and Noah kiss on the bridge was a bit rushed - and all of a sudden they declare their love for each other - for the rest of their lives.... that was a bit much.
The part about the search for Noah's father added a nice depth to the story and although that felt a bit rushed at times as well, I still thought the moment where Noah meets his father was the most emotional part of the story. Also, the caste (or ruin) provides very nice elements. Being from Europe myself, I thought the whole 'being in France and eating French food' felt a bit exaggerated, but I can understand the FMC's obsession with good food. All in all I thought it was a fun read.

A three-month holiday living in a castle? Sign me the eff up!

This book was so cute and good and magnificent! Enemies to lovers, forced proximity--it's my dream come true. I loved the bonus of the mystery. Merry arrived to a castle for a much needed break, and lo and behold, Noah is there who she doesn't like. Neither willing to leave, they are forced to strike up a friendship that'll lead to something more (because of course it does!) This was delightful. Sarah does amazing at making me swoon and laugh at the same time. The romance was cute and lovely.

I can't wait to read more by this author!

This book was just fun to read! Funny at times, heartfelt at others, “French Holiday” is an enchanting romance with a fairy tale setting, witty dialogue, silly scenarios, and at the heart of it, two people who go from not liking each other to finding the love they both need.

After Merry’s sister marries Leo- Merry’s best friend and the love of her life- she doesn’t know if her happily ever after will ever come. After quitting her job, her Godmother offers her the opportunity of a lifetime: house sit for her at a fabulous French Chateau while she figures out what she wants to do with her life. Apartment sublet, bags packed, Merry heads to France with high hopes, only to arrive at said chateau and see that it’s less than fabulous and that it’s also being occupied by Leo’s best man and Merry’s nemesis Noah. When neither of them want to budge on leaving, they agree to share their French castle for 3 months and all the trouble that comes along with it. As time goes, their arrangement turns to friendship, and then friendship starts to look like something more.

I found the comedy in this ‘friends to enemies’ romance to be refreshing. The banter between Noah and Merry was cute, fun, and made me look forward to every interaction they had in the book. Were some of the scenes a little wacky (I’m talking about you, Louis the Lobster)? Yes, yes they were. At the end of the day, however, I also think they added to the charm of the story. At the end of the day, I really enjoyed myself reading this book, and think that others will as well, a solid 4/5 stars. Enjoy!

**Thank you so much to Swift and Lewis Publishing LLC and NetGalley for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for my honest opinion. It was a pleasure!**

Thank you NetGalley, author and publisher for having this available as an ARC. I had seen it all over Instagram that I had to check it out.

The story follows Merry who has to watch her sister Angela marry the man she’s in love with, Leo. She can’t help but look on with wonder - why didn’t she ever tell Leo in the 4 years that she knew him. Leo’s best man Noah encourages Merry to stop pining for him and to move on. Merry can’t stand Noah, thinking he’s arrogant and can’t understand why everyone likes him - it’s probably because he’s famous for making documentaries and has so much charm. She gets drunk at the wedding, wakes up in Noah’s bed and quickly gets out before he wakes up. At breakfast, Merry’s godmother Jupiter encourages her to seize life. She has a chateau in France if Merry ever wanted to create her own magic. When some unfortunate circumstances occur at work, Merry takes the plunge and who happens to be at the chateau? Noah! Can she really spend the next 3 months with him? Or is there more than meets the eye?

I was so engaged with this book that I read it in 6 hours. This was so much fun to read! The internal dialogue of Merry had me laughing out loud at times and I could relate to her worry or thoughts surrounding herself. I think when you’re constantly in the shadow of someone else, it’s hard not to be a bit self deprecating. When she found her spark and need for adventure, I was really rooting for her to have a holiday romance with a French men.

Noah was a bit of a mystery at the start. He had a hard exterior and he was just an onion waiting for the layers to be peeled back. We learned why he kept everyone at arm’s length and why he didn’t let anyone truly in. My picture of him is that he’s just stunningly gorgeous! His love of reading and references to gothic romances had me smiling.

There was little spice in this book and I didn’t mind that. It was more cleaner than the books I’m used to haha! The writing is so easy to read. You’ll laugh, smile, have some cringe moments, probably say “oh why did you do that?” and love all the characters at the same time. This was definitely charming, sweet, fun and a rom com you’d love seeing being made into a movie. Would definitely recommend!

Wine🍷…cheese🧀…lobsters…🦞
(A few very intense scenes with a lobster.)
A cute story that takes you right to the French countryside. I loved the French setting and all of the descriptions of the food and scenery of the castle, although I would have loved more scenery descriptions not at the castle too!
The main couple was adorable and I thought they had good chemistry and played off of each other well.
There were a handful of scenes that had me grinning from ear to ear as they were so funny and cute!
I usually enjoy Ready’s books and I thought this was a great addition to her works. I always look forward to picking up one of her books!
A big thank you to Swift & Lewis Publishing for a complimentary advanced copy of this book!

Thank you Netgalley, Sarah Ready, and Swift & Lewis Publishing for the ARC of French Holiday in exchange for an honest review!

Unfortunately I felt this one was hard for me to get into even though it has some of my favorite tropes. I just couldn’t enjoy Noah’s character and I’m not sure if it’s because there wasn’t a point of view for him or if it was how he was acting I’m unsure but I couldn’t get into it. I feel like in order to make it better it should’ve had his POV or less unnecessary details.

4 stars = I liked it. I love the premise of escaping to the European countryside and living there and finding love. So ot was fun to see a little slice of France's wine country. And I like the grumpy guy cheery girl pairing - our leading lady in very appealing. Add to this a bit of a mystery and two HEAs and French Holiday was a enjoyable read for me.

ARC courtesy of the publisher via NetGalley- French Holiday is available now '- this is an unpaid review

Merry DeLuca has been in love with her best friend for over many years. Right on the cusp of professing her love, her little sister swoops in and steals him. Unbeknownst to the two of them, she's living in a haze. At the wedding of Angela and Leo, Merry is subjected to Noah, who is Leo's best man. It's like a love/hate vibe. So Merry's fairy godmother has offered her the use of her castle in France for the next three months. She is drooling over the food and the possibility of a holiday affair. Only Nash Wright is there. He has rented the castle for several weeks. Can they live together in a castle that is falling down? The village is quaint, the food is amazing and have made a new friend/s. It seems that Pierre is perfect for her fling but Camille has other ideas. When Noah tells Merry what he is there for, she believes in him. The only other person who can help him, doesn't believe him. Not only does Merry help him heal from his past, she has fallen in love with him. Trust her fairy godmother to make everything all right.

French Holiday is the first Sarah Ready book I've picked up, and it certainly won't bee the last.

Needing to get over her unrequited love for her best friend asap, considering how he just married her sister, Merry accepts her godmother's offer to visit France and live in her chateau. What she doesn't know is that Noah, bff's other friend, just rented that castle in order to complete research and work on his next documentary. The problem? There's only one bed and did I forgot to mention that they also hate each other. Their respective pasts make it difficult for them to trust in love, but slowly they go from enemies to friends to more, opening up and trusting in one another.

While I enjoy a good dual POV from time to time (uhm....Archer's Voice), I felt like reading the story from solely Merry's perspective was pleasantly refreshing. You don't have the chance to know or dive straight away into Noah's feelings or where his mind was at during certain scenes, instead you get to experience the ways in which both main characters slowly begin to open up and become more involved with each other. I also liked the mystery behind the chateau itself and, while I didn't initially like them, the side characters truly grew on me as they became more vulnerable with their emotions.

French Holiday was such a sweet and fun book to read. It had a perfect balance between both love and lust with a nice added dash of mystery. It made for an overall cute, hilarious, and absolutely amazing spring read! If you like reading while on vacation or a good romcom, you'll most likely enjoy this book.

Thank you Netgalley, Sarah Ready, and Swift & Lewis Publishing for the ARC of French Holiday in exchange for an honest review!
French Holiday has some of my favorite tropes: enemies to lovers, forced proximity, and one bed. Merry and Noah are forced to live together in a ready to collapse French castle. Merry escaped to the castle to get away from her sister and best friend/man she is in love with, after they get married. Noah is in France to uncover some family secrets. Together they get on each others nerves while growing closer each day.
This is the first book that I have read from Sarah Ready. I LOVED the humor throughout the book and caught myself laughing many times. I really loved Merry's personality and the Louis and cockroach scenes had me rolling!!!! Literal perfection!
Now, for some reason Noah's character didn't have me as hooked. Maybe if there was alternating POVs, I would have been more invested in his character. Therefore, the love story fell a little flat for me personally. I also felt that the book dragged at certain parts and was a little too long.
Regardless, I would highly recommend this book. I really loved Sarah's writing style and am looking forward to picking up some of her other books.

French Holiday by Sarah Ready and Narrated by Kelsey Navarro was romantic comedy and a very good book, that will have you laughing out loud in several places......So be warned. It was a breath of fresh air and a great holiday read, I loved it, especially the characters.

The Narrator Kelsey Navarro was excellent.

I highly recommend this book or audiobook

Big Thank you NetGalley and Swift & Lewis Publishing for my ARC and my audio copy.

𝐅𝐢𝐫𝐬𝐭 𝐨𝐟 𝐚𝐥𝐥, 𝐈 𝐰𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐝 𝐥𝐢𝐤𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐤 𝐒𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐡 𝐑𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐲, 𝐒𝐰𝐢𝐟𝐭 & 𝐋𝐞𝐰𝐢𝐬 𝐏𝐮𝐛𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐋𝐋𝐂, 𝐚𝐧𝐝 #𝐍𝐞𝐭𝐠𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐲 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐯𝐢𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐚 𝐟𝐫𝐞𝐞 𝐜𝐨𝐩𝐲 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐛𝐨𝐨𝐤 #𝐅𝐫𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐡𝐇𝐨𝐥𝐢𝐝𝐚𝐲 𝐢𝐧 𝐞𝐱𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐞 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐚𝐧 𝐡𝐨𝐧𝐞𝐬𝐭 𝐫𝐞𝐯𝐢𝐞𝐰. 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐨𝐩𝐢𝐧𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 𝐞𝐱𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐞𝐝 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐛𝐨𝐨𝐤 𝐫𝐞𝐯𝐢𝐞𝐰 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐥𝐞𝐭𝐞𝐥𝐲 𝐦𝐲 𝐨𝐰𝐧.

𝐋𝐞𝐭’𝐬 𝐠𝐞𝐭 𝐨𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐫𝐞𝐯𝐢𝐞𝐰. ⬇️
〰️〰️〰️〰️〰️

Merry DeLuca was heartbroken after her sister married her bestfriend, the man she had always loved. In an attempt to escape her troubles, Merry agreed to spend three months in a French castle. However, her plans for a perfect holiday were ruined when she found out Noah Wright, the best man at her sister’s wedding, was also staying at the castle. Despite their initial animosity, they agreed to live as friends for the duration of the holiday. As they spend more time together, their friendship started to feel like something more.

If you are looking for a charming, feel-good read that will lift your spirits and make you smile, then this contemporary romance novel is a perfect choice. “French Holiday” has lovable and relatable characters, heartwarming plot, and plenty of romantic tension. It got me hooked from the first page.

Sarah Ready’s writing was light and easy to read, making “French Holiday” the perfect book to curl up with on a lazy afternoon or to take with you on your next vacation. The story how Merry found the guy who would accept and love her even during those times when she felt she was at her ugliest was sweet and uplifting with just the right amount of conflict and drama to keep things interesting.

Noah was also the perfectly imperfect male main character. His character was well-written in this novel. He was broken by his past yet he never gave up on hope. How Sarah Ready uncover the mystery of Noah’s past and why he acted the way he did when he was with Merry in the first chapters of the novel was seamless and brilliantly written.

“French Holiday” might fall into a category of predictable plot line since it kind of followed the same pattern as many contemporary romance novels, but “French Holiday”, I believe, stood out when it comes to how real the characters felt like, the humor and right amount of pacing in the storytelling, and many amazing lines that told me this book was written by an awesome mind.

Overall, this book was a delightful escape from the real world, and a perfect choice for anyone looking for a romantic, uplifting read that will leave them feeling happy and satisfied.

Now, stop thinking your stuck being an ugly duckling and be a swan. 🩷💙

(Review was also posted in my Instagram account, Goodreads, and Amazon.)

This was an enjoyable romance/rom com in spite of the tropes used: a young woman leaves for Europe to ease a broken heart; a man and a woman and only one bed available; dislike turning slowly to love; a fairy godmother to the rescue, etc.

Merry's secret love marries her younger sister, and she runs off to France to take care of a crumbling chateau offered by her godmother, Jupiter. Merry chances to meet Noah, one of the groomsmen of the wedding, whom she loathes but whom she has to tolerate as he has rented the chateau for several months.

Sparks begin to fly between the two but there are secrets that Noah is hiding as he searches into his past to clear his bad reputation in the village.

There are other interesting characters that flesh out the plot and bring added interest to the story.

I really enjoyed this funny rom com. I'm always interested in a story about a character who packs up and moves somewhere totally different when their life implodes and this one delivers. When Merry escapes to the French countryside to move into a crumbling chateau, the change of scenery shakes up her life in more ways than one. Being a fish out of water challenges her to really live in the present and stop worrying so much about everyone else.

Merry is a character that a lot of older sisters who took care of younger siblings are going to relate to, especially the way that she puts her own needs and wants on the back burner to make others happy. So, when she gets her chance to live her own life and has some crazy new experiences, you'll be rooting for her all the way.

The MMC, Noah, is a bit of a mysterious guy who turns out to have a very painful past. While he does become more lovable throughout the story, it takes time for him to trust Merry and be willing to be vulnerable.

If you're a fan of physical comedy, which I am, you'll enjoy a lot of the scenes in this book. They read as if you are watching a movie of the story happening in your head.

The only thing I didn't love was near the end, the story seems to go off the rails a little bit and some things happen that don't really make a lot of sense. But, again, this is a rom com, so it's all in the name of entertainment and getting to that HEA.

This is a charming and delightful novel. The writing is engaging, and full of humorous moments, and enemies to loves par excellence (set in a French castle, to boot!).. I loved Noah and Merry, and enjoyed reading about them finding themselves as they stumbled together into love.

(Also, it TOTALLY made me want to stay in a French castle of my own.)

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the arc of #FrenchHoliday! I'm not really sure where to begin with this book, I really liked the idea of it and I felt connected to the characters but... the execution left something to be desired. Honestly, I felt like it was too long and multiple chunks of the story could have been cut out. The beginning of the book didn't feel like it fit the rest of the book and did not give enough sufficient background to even make a difference in the story, it could have easily been a flashback or some sort of prologue. There was a giant conflict between Merry and Leo that was I think supposed to set the stage for the entire book and felt significant in the first few chapters but then seemed unnecessary as the book went on. There was also a whole conflict with Angela and Leo and Merry and Noah which did not add anything but length to the book.

Once we got to France it started to pick up and was enjoyable but then there was a large chunk in the middle that could have definitely been cut out and was unnecessary to the plot line. Although I definitely appreciate an epilogue this one seemed pretty useless. There also seemed to be two competing storylines between Noah and Merry. Noah's search and reasoning behind his traveling and then Merry's search for herself and love. The addition of Pierre and Camille was a lot, if there was going to be an entire backstory of them, a storyline AND a resolution then it would have been better just to have written an entire book about them and turned it into a series. Again, there were just too many characters with significant backstories. It didn't add anything meaningful to the story and at some point it was just distracting from what I think was supposed to be the main storyline between Noah and Merry.

This book would have greatly benefitted from a dual POV between Noah and Merry, I think that would have also cut out some of the unnecessary parts of the book while providing what Noah is thinking and feeling which was definitely missing from the story.

I didn't hate this book, I enjoyed most of it but it did have some flaws. I think it was supposed to be enemies to lovers but I didn't really get that vibe, the enemy part of it seemed very forced. Overall, I would give it 3 stars though I think others would enjoy it a lot more than I did. It was a quick read and the setting was fun!

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for a copy of this book. All opinions are 100% my own.

This book was so, so good. The build up to the romance was perfectly paced and had me internally screaming at the main characters throughout (always a good sign for me). The mystery side plot that was introduced about halfway through the story was welcomed, as the plot needed this boost to stay interesting.

I was not a fan of the number of proposals between couples after only days of dating. This felt unrealistic to me.

I also wish that a definitive answer on who ‘the ghost’ of the tower was as there were two possible women it could have been.

I absolutely loved this book! I’m a fan of Josh and Gemma Make a Baby, but this book pleasantly surprised me even more! From the gothic romance references to the setting of a crumbling French chateau to the romance (sort of enemies, sort of friends to lovers, unrequited love, etc.), this book overdelivered on my expectations. I loved the main characters, and I loved that though there were probably easier routes for this story to go (like Noah having unrequited love for Merry all along, etc), I appreciated that the author took a little more complicated route to get there. I would totally recommend this book and am thankful for the arc!

Nothing like a reluctant romance between a travelling playboy and a girl trying to unlove her sister's new husband. Ok so they were best friends first before he met her sister, well that might not sound any better, right? Once she finds out they're pregnant she decides it best to run to France and stay at her godmother's home in order to forget and move on, but soon finds that travelling playboy who's been promised to stay there too. Soon an interesting friendship begins and maybe something more.
You've gotta love these two away in a foreign place where things begin to heat up and get confusing, but that's the sweet spot. A great pair and Sarah never disappoints. A fun, bumpy trip in France that will make you run to find your passport.
Thanks Netgalley for the chance to read this book and give my honest opinion.

Merry DeLuca has a problem—a big problem. Her sister just married her best friend and the only man she’s ever loved. Her life is rapidly spiraling down the drain and she doesn’t have an escape plan.

So when Merry is offered a three-month holiday living in a romantic castle in the French countryside she leaps at the chance. Merry knows her French holiday will fix everything—there will be mouthwatering pastries, delicious (meaningless) flirtations, and languid strolls through vineyards at sunset. Her holiday will be perfect.

At least, Merry believes that until she arrives and finds Noah Wright—the best man at her sister’s wedding and the worst man she’s ever known—staying in her castle.

Famous travel documentarian by day and arrogant devil by night, Noah refuses to leave the castle. Which means that Merry and Noah are stuck together in France, in a crumbling castle, in a holiday where nothing goes right. Not for Merry and not for Noah.

So they strike a truce—they’ll live as cohabitating friends for three-months, and then they’ll amicably part ways, never to see each other again.

But the thing about friendship? Sometimes secrets are uncovered. Mysteries revealed. Hearts laid bare. And friendship can start to feel a lot like caring. A lot like love. It can even make you wish that the holiday never has to end.

This has all of my favorite tropes: enemies to lovers and a slow burn. Really enjoyed this story. Will recommend to others.